The evolution of the sustainable business performance in relation to the technology integration reveals a significant revolution but regrettably is given little global attention, thus compelling the firms to reexamine the approach for their business growth. Considerably, e-marketing has been recognized as an emerging practice and plays a vital strategic tool to bring sellers and buyers on a digital platform. Besides, this study analyzes the moderating effects of trading partners (TPs) and competitive pressure (CP) in the relationship between top management support (TMS) and use of e-marketing (UEM). Moreover, the interactive role of government support (GS) and technological opportunism (TOP) was also analyzed between the UEM and sustainable firm performance (SFP). The study also discussed the mediating role of e-marketing usage between TMS and SFP. The data (n = 293) were collected from the marketing managers employed in the textile firms of Pakistan. Additionally, the findings revealed that TMS had a significant direct relationship with the UEM and the SFP. Moreover, UEM mediated the relationship between TMS and SFP. Finally, TP’s pressure moderated the relationship between TMS and UEM, and TOP moderate the relationship between UEM and SFP, whereas CP and GS were unable to moderate the relationship particularly in current study context. However, this study has contributed empirically to several recognized relationships among the variables and extends the existing knowledge of literature. The study has contributed empirically to several recognized relationships among the variables and extends the existing knowledge of literature by leaving certain aspects of research for future studies.
Work engagement is arguably one of the key challenges confronted by the higher education sector of Pakistan. Therefore, it is important to understand the diverse perspectives of work engagement in this sector. This study examines the effect of job demand and spiritual leadership on work engagement in public universities of Pakistan through the mediating role of burnout and moderating effect of spiritual leadership between job demand and burnout and between burnout and work engagement. The study framework was established from theories, namely, the job demand-resource theory and the spiritual leadership theory. The respondents were 271 faculty members working in different universities of Pakistan. The findings show a significant relationship between job demand and burnout and between burnout and work engagement. Moreover, the results show a positive relationship between spiritual leadership with work engagement and negative relationship with burnout. However, the findings show the insignificant direct relationship between job demand and work engagement, whereas burnout mediates the relationship between job demand, spiritual leadership, and work engagement. Interestingly, spiritual leadership plays an important role in moderating the relationship between burnout and work engagement but does not moderate the relationship between job demand and burnout. Besides, the findings of the study will redound to organizational benefits by enriching research on the area of burnout and work engagement, which is so far in its infancy by referring to its potential antecedent and moderating variable. Finally, the study will be useful for both organizations and employees to achieve desired outcomes.
18 October 2018 in Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences
Purpose: Considering the economic dimension of sustainability, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the risk of bankruptcy in the Pakistani firms of the non-financial sector from years 1995 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach: Three techniques were used which include multivariate discriminant analysis (MDA), logit regression and multilayer perceptron artificial neural networks. The accounting data of firms were selected one year before the bankruptcy. Findings: Findings were obtained by comparing and analyzing the methods which show that neural networks model outperforms in the prediction of bankruptcy. They further conclude that profitability and leverage indicators have the power of discrimination in bankruptcy prediction and the best variables to predict financial distress are also found and indicated. Practical implications: Practically, this study may help the firms to better anticipate the risks of getting bankrupt by choosing the right method and to make effective decision making for organizational sustainability. Originality/value: Three different techniques were used in this research to predict the bankruptcy of non-financial sector in Pakistan to make an effective prediction.
Purpose: Leadership styles appear to influence unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), but there has been little empirical research on employees' ethical behavior as an outcome of responsible leadership. This study examines the positive effect of responsible leadership on unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) via the mediator, leader–member exchange (LMX).Design/methodology/approach: Responses from 200 full-time working employees in Pakistan were collected in two waves, and structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.Findings: The results indicated that LMX mediated the relationship between responsible leadership and UPB. Our research also yielded a negative relationship between responsible leadership and employees' willingness to engage in UPB and between LMX and UPB. In addition, the mediation and direct relationship results were stronger for employees who spent more than seven years in the organization as compared to those with less than seven years.Research limitations/implications: The leader's responsible behavior trickles down to the subordinates and encourages their employees to behave responsibly too. We also showed that responsible leadership influenced employees’ UPB engagement through LMX.Practical implications: By adopting a responsible leadership style through training practices and appraisal tools, organizations may increase quality exchange relationship between leader and subordinates, which will reduce UPB.Originality/value: This paper is one of the few empirical studies which have examined the relationship between responsible leadership, LMX and UPB. The results from our study help to enhance findings from earlier studies on the antecedents of UPB. Contrary to previous studies, our study also shows that LMX can lead to ethical behavior i.e. reduce UPB.
Human or social dimensions need to be significantly considered to maintain organizational sustainability. Unfortunately, this aspect has received relatively little attention when compared to other dimensions of sustainability. This study promotes the presence of a leader to manage conflicts, which cause hindrances in achieving sustainability. This is possible by maximizing sustainable knowledge sharing in a team, by effectively utilizing temporal diversity, including time urgency, time perspective, and pacing style diversity under a certain time pressure. This study has examined the effect of temporal diversity on knowledge sharing within teams by taking temporal conflict as a mediator. Moreover, it was also investigated whether the role of team temporal leadership is effective in utilizing the conflicts arising from the temporal diversity. The research design was quantitative in nature. A purposive sampling technique was used to gather data from 100 dyads working in the telecom sector of Pakistan, by distributing questionnaires. The findings suggest that team temporal leadership plays an effective role when a conflict arises rather than after it has arisen because more time and resources will be required to resolve such conflicts arising from temporal diversity. When the temporal diversity is low, the leader can manage the conflicts quite well, but as the diversity increases, the role of the temporal leader become much harder which may cause increased conflicts because of the limited capacity of a leader to manage those conflicts. Furthermore, it was observed that conflicts, if managed properly, may lead to increased knowledge sharing.